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Warner Bros., 1965. Directed by
Ken Annakin. Camera: Jack Hildyard. With
Henry Fonda,
Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan,
Dana Andrews,
George Montgomery, Ty Hardin, Pier Angeli, Barbara Werle, Charles Bronson,
Hans Christian Blech, Werner Peters, James MacArthur, Telly Savalas, Karl
Otto Alberty, William Conrad, Steve Rowland, Robert Woods, Charles Stainaker,
David Thompson, Sebastian Cavalieri, Raoul Pérez,
Jack Gaskins, Janet Brandt, Max Staten, Carl Rapp, Axel Anderson, Donald
Pickering, Bud Strait, Peter Herendeen, Ben Tatar, Paul Eshelman, Richard
Zeidman. |
In December 1944 Allied soldiers are
anticipating victory in Europe and the end of the war. U.
S. intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Kiley, however,
believes that the German Army is planning to launch a major,
last-ditch offensive in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium.
Kiley's superiors, Colonel Pritchard and General Grey, take no
action because they believe the Germans to be too exhausted to carry
out such an attack. In fact, famed German tank commander
Colonel Hessler has been recalled from the Russian front to lead a
fullscale attack using troops and a throng of new Tiger tanks.
The Germans wait for bad weather to
ground the Allies' superior air support and then make their assault.
Moreover, the Germans place English-speaking saboteurs, uniformed as
military police, behind the lines to cause confusion among the
Allies. The force of the assault having lowered the morale of
the American troops, Kiley watches as they retreat, and he suddenly
deduces that the Germans will soon run out of gasoline; they have
been foraging from captured supply dumps now in the hands of the
saboteurs. Lieutenant Weaver recognizes the saboteurs for what
they are, and, encouraged by the wounded Kiley, he and a small group
recapture the largest of the dumps to prevent it from falling to
Hessler.
As the German tanks approach the dump,
Weaver and his men roll the drums of gasoline toward the tanks and
ignite them, setting the fleet ablaze and averting the last serious
threat of the German Army.
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Poster artwork courtesy of Pete, and
additional photo courtesy of Gary |
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Click thumbnails for larger images |
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